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Undead
Back to Races ---- Buildings ''Deathkeep'' Like most keeps in the game, the Deathkeep is quite large and has the typical stats for a keep seen across most races. However, come tier 4 and the Deathkeep can research the skill "Dark Citadel". Once complete, the Deathkeep can change day into night on command for 100 crystal. Undead gain massive boosts during night and so you'll find yourself casting this ability quite regularly. With this ability, 5 skills to research, the production of Vampires, as well as the possibility of converting buildings, the Deathkeep has a lot of things it can be doing throughout the course of the battle. Feast of Garok: +4 combat for Zombies and gives them an interactive ability to scavenge resources from freshly slain units. Tombguard: +3 combat for Wights. (Requires level 2) Vampire Bats: Bats gain the Vampirism ability. (Requires level 3) Dark Citadel: Deathkeeps gain an interactive ability to change day into night for 100 crystal. (Requires level 4) Dark Lord: +8 to your Hero's command. (Requires level 5) ''Graveyard'' Graveyards are quite large buildings and have a lot of hit points.They are also very important to Undead early game with production of their builders, basic infantry (which can become any of their infantry) and allows the more common production building - the Gravestone - to be built. As the game goes on, the Graveyard's importance drops. This is due to Gravestones becoming the main production buildings and Cages summoning Thralls for builders / miners. However, the Graveyard can produce an unique unit - the Skeleton Cavalry, and it's this very unit that keeps the building in use late game. Burial: Allows Gravestones to be built. ''Gravestone'' Gravestone may only produce Skeletons, but as they can become any Undead infantry, that is all the Gravestone needs to produce. With its very small size and cheap cost that doesn't use gold, the Undead player can build many of these quite easily and within a confined space. Unfortunately, Gravestones only offer a single point towards the population cap, meaning you'll need to build MANY to support your army size. Interestingly, the Gravestone itself can be morphed into a Skeleton. At first this may not seem like a big deal or anything useful, but if you happen to be unfortunate enough to have your gold mines or / and your ore mines go dry (the resources needed to build Skeletons), then you can still produce Skeletons through essentially "swapping" the resources used to build them by building Gravestones instead and then morphing those into Skeletons. ''Boneyard'' As well as producing a typical siege weapon, the Undead smithy equivalent also researches weapon and armor upgrades. The Bone Catapult may seem worthless in the hand of the Undead, and their weapon and damage upgrades are few, but the most important use of the Boneyard is that it is required to morph Skeletons into Wights. And, of course, without Wights, there could be no Slayer / Doom Knights nor Liches! To loose the Boneyard to enemy fire is to loose a vital part of your army. Weaponsmith 1: Adds +5 damage to non-flying melee units. Weaponsmith 2: Adds an additional +5 damage to non-flying melee units, making +10 overall. (Requires Weaponsmith 1) Dark Mithril: Adds a further +5 damage to non-flying melee units, making +15 overall, as well as +10 armor to all units. (Requires Weaponsmith 2) ''Barrow'' The Barrow is a rather small building that is needed to morph Skeletons into Wraiths (and, of course, Shadows). It offers 2 skills to research, which are specific to Wraiths and Shadows, and that's all there is to it. You'll only ever build one of these, probably purchase the 2 skills while it's being built and then forget about its very existence for the remainder of the battle. Haunting: +3 speed to Wraiths and Shadows. Wailing: +3 combat to Wraiths and Shadows. ''Brood'' The Undead can produce 2 of the nastiest Dragons around, so you would want to get your Brood to level 3 as soon as you can. As for the other units the Brood can produce - Bats can be useful early game for scouting if you lack a retinue Vampire, but with Shadows available at tier 3, the Harpies main role is already taken, leaving them with only those really situational tasks to do (such as rendering Dwarven Runelords useless). So, if you're not bothered about scouting nor do those rare situations that have need of a Harpy over a Shadow show up, then you could easily forgo building a Brood till tier 5, when Dragons become available. ''Cage'' Like the Barrow, the Cage is a small building that allows Skeletons to morph into a stronger unit (in this case, the Slayer Knight), as well as offering skills to power up those newly morphed units. However, the Cage has another function - the ability to "summon" Thralls. Because of this, and the fact that the skills to research are incredibly expensive, you wont immediately forget about the Cage after building it. Slavehorde: Adds an interactive ability to the Cage that allows it to summon up to 10 Thralls for 200 gold. Torture: Slayer and Doom Knights deal double damage. (Does not stack with Fallen Knight) Fallen Knight: Slayer and Doom Knights deal triple damage against Human units. ''Altar of Shadows'' As you would probably have guessed, the Altar of Shadows allows Wraiths to morph into Shadows. This time there aren't any unit specific researches to be had, but instead racial mana regen bonuses. The Altar of Shadows has a remarkable amount of hit points, especially considering that it's still a rather small building. But otherwise, it's treated the same as the Barrow and Cage. Summon Mana 1: Mana regeneration in your army is at 150% of normal. Summon Mana 2: Mana regeneration in your army is at 200% of normal. (Requires Summon Mana 1) Summon Mana 3: Mana regeneration in your army is at 300% of normal. (Requires Summon Mana 2) ''Black Library'' The Black Library is the final building needed to morph Undead units. With it, you can morph Slayer Knights into either Liches or Doom Knights. (Although Doom Knights still require every other morph related building to be present) Being linked to such powerful units, the Black Library should be built as soon as possible. But as the Black Library also produce the Undead Titan - Lord Bane, be sure to place it well to ensure that he doesn't get stuck in your base after he is produced. The Black Library seems to posses the same stats are the Altar of Shadows, including its hefty hit points. However, the Black Library is slightly larger, but still only average in size. As the building has endless spell researches that is limited only in the amount you can research at any one time, you may want to build a second Black Library to accelerate the amount of spells your Hero will learn - one researches Spell Research. the other Arcane Research. Of course, once you start to produce Lord Bane, then you may even go for a third Black Library. Staff of Damnation: +2 range for Liches. Liche King: +4 combat for Liches. Spell Research: Increases your Hero's spell casting by 1 in a random sphere for the remainder of the battle. There is no limit to the amount of times you can purchase this skill. Arcane Research: Increases your Hero's spell casting by 2 in a random sphere for the remainder of the battle. There is no limit to the amount of times you can purchase this skill. ''Tower (Undead) Undead Towers are actually rather poor. They have slightly less HP than what is seen to be average (350), they have a very long build time, especially since their builders are also poor, its attack type of Electrical has the inherited flaw of not scattering after missing, and it still costs a ridiculous amount - the same amount as many, much better, towers. To top it off, the only missile units Undead get that can garrison towers are Liches, who are only available at tier 4. Meaning, up until that point in the game, the Undead towers are largely limited in regards to damage output. While the Undead army can be a force to be reckoned with, their heavy reliance on single buildings, the need to build pointless buildings just to extend their pop cap and with these poor base defense towers all make their base their weakest point. Units ''Zombie - Undead Builder The builder and miner of the Undead. It doesn't build very fast, it has a slow movement speed but it is fairly cheap, can transmit diseases and is one of the more tougher builders around. It can also be upgraded to scavenge resources from freshly slain units, but the likelihood of the Zombie actually ever meeting a dead body is almost never, so the ability is somewhat wasted. ''Skeleton - Undead Basic Infantry'' Being the basic fighter of the Undead, its true strength lies in its ability to instantly upgrade to a stronger unit, provided you have the tech and resources to do so. On its own it is worthless, although it has some merit in overwhelming arrow towers since it is nearly invulnerable to piercing attacks. ''Wight - Undead Basic Infantry'' This little sword-and-shield guy is the first level-up from a skeleton, and it is much, much stronger. It can withstand quite some of punishment for a tier one creature due to its resistance to slashing damage. When fully upgraded with damage and armor upgrades, it even has some use in the late game as cheap meatshields. Watch out for crushing damage dealing enemies, though. A group of these can dominate early on in the game. Can be upgraded to the Liche and Slayer Knight. ''Bat - Basic Flier'' Undead Bats are unique in the sence that in tier 3 you can upgrade them with Vampirism - allowing them to gain HP back upon attacking. However, this doesn't in any way make them useful for combat - it simply allows them to go toe-to-toe with the other bottom-of-the-barrel basic fliers. In other words, Dragonflies. (Opposing non-Undead Bats come from races who have access to the Training skill, effectively giving them 2 extra levels in no-Hero games.) Fighting anything more powerful usually results in the Bat being slain outright. The Undeads' purpose for Bats is scouting and that's basically it - Undead posses better archer / tower fodder in Skeletons (and Cavalry) to absorb physical missiles, or Shadows to sponge elemental attacks. It's rather insulting when you realize that out of all the races that can use Bats, Undead can really only use them for scouts, but yet, Undeads' Bats are the weakest of all other races Bats for that role. This is ironically down to the other races not actually needing them for scouting due to either access to Farseeing or earlier, more useful scouts, but yet they can improve their Bat's scouting role through Eagle Eye. ''Wraith - Undead Basic Floating Infantry'' This floating, ice damage dealing creature is the other upgrade possible from the skeleton and would be nearly useless if not for one very interesting ability: if it slays an enemy, it leeches all its experience! Yes, that includes Heroes. So use an army of these (costs some crystal) and hunt down the enemy Hero, and you have an instant level 20 juggernaut at your command! Can be upgraded to the stronger and faster ghost. The biggest drawback of the wraith is its vulnerability to physical attacks, at a time in the game when most attacks are physical. So be careful with them. Luckily, they can outrun most enemies when upgraded with the Haunting skill. ''Shadow - Undead Advanced Floating Infantry'' The upgrade from the Wraith - these are faster, stronger and slightly more resilient overall. But they gain a huge boost on the elemental side where they can be used to sponge missile attacks that the other Undead units normally cannot. They also retain the ability to leech the experience from slain enemies. This means they can really shine when an enemy has done an XP upgrade on its creatures (for example, the Fey). When they kill a creature, they will level up and heal immediately, making them very difficult to kill. ''Skeleton Cavalry- Undead Advanced Cavalry'' The first thing that stands out with Skeleton Cavalry is their production cost. Aside from Skeletons (which can be raised for free by Liches), they have no resource competition with any other Undead unit. This allows you to field them without compromising the upgrading of your other units. Stat wise, they're not too shabby and also possess a great ability. All this makes Skeleton Cavalry a really decent unit. The only issue they bring is that they count as 2 units for the population cap, something which Undead are always struggling with due to their lack of need for buildings. ''Thrall - Primitive Builder'' At tier 3 Undead can obtain Thralls from Cages via the Slavehorde skill. As they are "summoned" in batches of 10, you can instantly fill a mine to its maximum capacity, and even have some left over. Although, by this stage in the game all your starting mines would have been filled, leaving only the more trickier mines, which questions whether they're actually worth the risk of filling. Thralls posses the same build skill as Zombies, but have a faster movement speed. This means you could effectively replace Zombies for Thralls as they will essentially get the job done faster (by getting to the destination faster). Although you should keep in mind their frailness when building near a war-zone. ''Slayer Knight - Undead Advanced Infantry'' A Wight can be upgraded to the Slayer Knight, which will cost you a lot of metal but will net you the first of the Undead Knights. They are very strong but watch out for crushing damage dealing enemies! Especially Catapults are the bane of these creatures, since they are very slow and thus have difficulties moving out of the way. In early tier three, have two of these support a group of Wights and Liches for their status effects on the enemy. In the end game, have a group of these and a group of Liches, then, when the Slayer Knight is badly wounded, transform him into a fully healed Doom Knight to surprise the enemy! ''Lich - Undead Advanced Missile Unit'' The Advanced Missile Units of the Undead, these guys are the damage dealers of your army. They do not have much hit points and are vulnerable to crushing damage (just like most of the Undead), but their damage output makes up for their weakness. Flinging fireball after fireball, four or five of these can demolish an entire base. A group of Slayer Knights supported by a couple of these is almost unstoppable. They can also summon Skeletons from fallen soldiers around them, that can then be upgraded to more advanced soldiers just like any Skeleton. This allows you to instantly replace your losses (if you have the resources), even if you don't have a Necromancer Hero. ''Doom Knight - Undead Elite Infantry'' The champion of Undead forces, the Doom Knight, is a sight to behold. Slow but unstoppable, it will cleave through wave after wave of enemy forces, bringing terror and death. It is resistant to slashing and piercing (and it is not vulnerable to crushing, like the other Undead), so it can hold out for a long time. With upgrades, it is about as powerful as the Minotaur king and can be upgraded to do triple damage against Humans. Bring a couple of Liches for support and you will have the ultimate Undead army. However, a Catapult's stunning attacks will render the Doom Knight useless. ''Harpy - Advanced Flier'' Undead don't care much for Poison, due to some of their units doing large damage per strike (Slayer / Doom Knights / Liches / Vampires), but one will always be pleased to see an enemy Hero get Poisoned! However, their main use has always come from their ability to drain enemy mana and that still applies here too, but not to the extent that other races need the ability. Most offensive spell casters can be put in their place with Shadows, who are resistant to all elemental attacks. The few that aren't, such as Moonguards and Manticores, wont get past most of the Undead army, anyway. However, Harpies can be used against more support orientated spell casters - essentially removing healing / wards and the likes, making them more susceptible to your army's assault. BUT there is one spell caster that the Harpy can be more effective against than any other unit (besides the Dragonliche), and that's the Runelord. Although it possess a fire type attack, its offensive spell, Doomstones, deals crushing damage - a type that hits nearly all Undead units for extra damage, including Shadows. This will be the one time that Harpies will prove valuable, as a Runelord without its magic is easy pickings for your Shadows. Unfortunately, Runelords can carry a lot of mana, able to cast Doomstones twice when at full. This does make things difficult for your Harpies, but if your Harpies can direct the Doomstones at them, then they have essentially done their job by saving the rest of your army from a crushing fate. If you really want to keep your Harpies alive, though, you could always send Bats in first and just fly there above them. This will probably be the only time they can be useful for fodder in the Undead race. ''Bone Catapult'' Bone Catapults are an inferior variant of the standard Catapult. The main reason is their range. While range 12 would be great for any other unit, for a siege weapon it's poor. This means that it has trouble out-ranging even un-garrisoned towers, and with only 60 damage, it wont be able to pull off much damage before said tower makes short work of the Bone Catapult's low HP. If you want to raze buildings of all types, then Liches are the units for the job - not to mention that you'll be fielding them anyway due to how much of an important role they play with Undead. ''Vampire - Undead General'' The general of the Undead, this unit is the only non-flying Undead unit that has to be bought at a building instead of upgraded from the skeleton. Its weakness to piercing attacks makes it fragile, however its strong 50 attack and high combat makes it effective at dueling other units. Its vampirism can help recover some lost HP, but as it recovers only 3 points per hit, it doesn't exactly extend the Vampire's life and is barely even noticeable. ''Frost Dragon - Elite Flier'' Undead were gifted with their choice of Dragons, for they couldn't of had a better choice when taking alignment in to account. Their synergy with Slayer / Doom Knights is fantastic - when your army of Undead Knights marches towards the enemy, a well micro-managed Frost Dragon can swoop down ahead and freeze all enemy missile units (as well as destroying Catapults and co) that were that hoping to slow down or stop their advancing doom by greatly reducing their damage output towards your Slayer / Doom Knights through a reduced attack speed. This usually results in the enemy unable to handle the situation and the confrontation is followed by a swift defeat. As mentioned in the main Frost Dragon entry, whether it's used offensively or defensively, the Frost Dragon works in pretty much every situation. ''Dragonliche - Elite Flier'' The Undead army can be pretty difficult to stop in its tracks, what with Liches raising Skeletons in the middle of a fight which can then morph into stronger units immediately, having a decent number of tough units through high armor and broad resistances, massive bonuses at night, uber Shadows etc.. The Dragonliche is basically that extra layer of icing on the already iced cake. This monstrosity is incredibly difficult to take down and is usually seen spearheading the Undead assault, followed closely by a Frost Dragon, taking shelter behind the Dragonliche's missile resistance. The Dragonliche simply draws all enemy fire towards it while spreading death and terror among the enemy ranks, allowing the rest of your attack force to move into position unscathed and ultimately brings the game to an end. It's no wonder the Dragonlich costs 50% more than the other Dragons (excluding the Celestial Dragon) However, some races (such as Plaguelords) don't use physical missiles to bring down aerial units and in these scenarios the Dragonliche can't prove its cost. Fortunately, you have Shadows to take over in those cases - that and nearly all the races rely on psychical missiles to safely take down aerial targets. ''Lord Bane - Undead Titan'' Lord Bane is your standard ranged Titan with nothing particularly noteworthy when compared to other Titans. His HP is rather low, his range is only 8 and even his view is pretty poor. The only interesting element is his attack type of fire. This typing allows him to do obscene damage vs buildings, and with a piercing resistance, he can knock around the common arrow-dealing towers like play things! Being a ranged unit, he should have melee units close by to protect him. Typically you would want to have Slayer / Doom Knights around, but Lord Bane has much higher speed than those, which often means he has to sit around waiting while his "bodyguards" move ahead before he can safely move on. Shadows can keep up, but aren't anywhere near as tough as the Undead Knights. Strategy Overall The Undead are a very potent and unique race in Warlords Battlecry 3. The Undead's units tend to be superior to most other race's, but they may suffer from economical problems due to the units' high expense. Despite this, the Undead's presence on the map can be immediately felt, with hundreds of almost Piercing-immune units and the ability to instantly counter anything fielded at them via the morph ability. Additionally, the Undead have access to amongst the best research combinations in the game - they not only get the very powerful and easily accessed Dark Mithril upgrade, but they also get access to a massive amount of various wizardly researches for a spellcasting hero. All in all, if the Undead can get a stable footing in the early game, their forces can be amongst the most fearsome available in WBC3. ''The Race'' Units The undead are a very unique race in that most units are not bought from buildings, but instantly upgraded from skeletons which can mean that the player needs to do a lot of resource-heavy micromanagement. This has a lot of implications for the way that the race is played. Most notably, it allows the player to send Skeletons into an opponent's base, then upgrade them instantly to fit whatever will counter the opponent the most. To get started, an Undead player's economy will need to be sorted due to the high costs of morphing Skeletons. Gold should be a reasonably high priority in the early game simply to create more Zombies, construct more buildings and upgrade the keep. Once gold is no longer an issue, Metal and then Crystal should be heavily invested in. This will allow the player to create the Undead's army - Wights, Slayer Knights and Doom Knights require Metal and Wraiths, Shadows and Liches require Crystal. The other two resources can be invested into Skeleton Riders should the enemy use Crushing damage. If the opponent is playing as the Empire or another race which would be challenged by Piercing-resistant units, it may be a possibility to Skeleton-rush them from the start of the game - which makes their arrow towers pointless. Wights or Wraiths are the first units the Skeleton can upgrade into. Wraiths access to the very powerful Cold damage type. Since they are resistant to all Elemental damage types and vulnerable to all Physical, they should be used when the opponent is using almost nothing but Elemental damage types. Otherwise, Wights should be used for their far greater physical toughness. Shadows are the upgraded version of Wraiths. They cost a massive amount of resources to obtain when compared to Wraiths and provide no additional function. Considering this cost and the comparative power-up they receive, Shadows should rarely be used. Skeleton Riders should never be underestimated. They deal a high amount of damage and have a lot of Speed. If the player has spare Gold and Stone and if the opponent is using a lot of Crushing damage, Skeleton Riders are a necessity. Liches are one of the most valuable Undead units available. They are capable of single-handedly razing an opponent's base. Additionally, Liches can raise an army of Skeletons around them - all of which can then be morphed into anything the Undead player needs. Liches should nearly always be a necessity to any Undead army as their unique abilities cannot easily be replicated by any other Undead unit. Should the player require a resilient front line to hold back the opponent, Slayer Knights and Doom Knights should more than suffice. Both are very resistant to almost all forms of damage and both inflict Chaos upon enemies, negating their Armour. Should the power be needed, Doom Knights are amongst the most fearsome of units in the game. Doom Knights are incredibly tough, are capable of attacking air units, inflict Chaos, have very high Combat and a large amount of Damage (which is upgradable via Weaponsmith and Dark Mithril). Bone Catapults are largely pointless to the Undead, however, if the enemy is vulnerable to Crushing damage or if they are using hordes of units, they can be very powerful due to high long ranged splash damage. Vampires can be incredibly useful at the start of a game thanks to the potential scouting ability of the summoned Bats. In 1.03.24, Vampires have no vampirism ability, but are still formidable units with very high amounts of Piercing damage. Unfortunately for the Undead, these generals are very difficult to produce as they can only be created at the level 5 keep building, unlike most other races. Vampires should be well protected when used for conversion, and if the player already has most of the map, that Crystal should be used for units such as Liches instead. In patch version 1.03, the ability to upgrade your units into stronger ones can be exploited when you wait until the units are nearly defeated. This is because upgrading will heal the unit completely, but will perserve its experience. This adds some micromanagement, but is a very powerful tactic to use with units such as a Slayer Knight. Buildings Graveyards are the first buildings any Undead player will construct. These can function as Zombie builders and Skeleton builders until the player gets access to Gravestones. Barrows give access and upgrade Wraiths and Shadows and Boneyards upgrade every Undead unit and give access to Wights. The Dark Mithril upgrade within the Boneyard should be a high priority as it completely changes the way Undead units can be used - alongside the Barrow upgrades, Dark Mithril allows Wraiths and Shadows to be used against even physical damage units. The Altar of Shadows (accessed at keep level 3) allows the Shadow to be created and provides incredibly powerful Summon Mana research for the hero (if the hero is a spellcaster). Cages allow and upgrade Slayer Knights and Doom Knights, though the latter will also require a Black Library (which provides very powerful upgrades for the Liches such as Staff of Damnation and Liche King). Broods give the Undead Bats at level 1, Harpies at level 2 and Dragonliches and Frost Dragons at level 3. Lastly, Undead Towers are somewhat resilient, but suffer from Electrical Damage which is difficult to hit enemies with. Should any defence be required, it is recommended to change that damage type unless the enemy is using a plethora of Electrical-vulnerable units. ''Heroes'' The first thing that comes to mind for an Undead hero should be the Necromancer. Being able to summon Zombies to instantly fill your mines can be very useful for the Undead economy. Alongside this, the ability to summon upgradable Skeletons can be used to instantly create an army, anywhere your hero is on the map. Undead can't trade for resources and they need a lot of Metal. This can be a big problem, but it can be circumvented by having a hero with Transmute from the Alchemy spell list. An Undead Alchemist can fill this roll, but it has one major disadvantage: it has no access to the Necromancy spell sphere until level 10. However, access to both Alchemy and Necromancy on an Undead hero will augment an already powerful race. Counters * Catapults are an Undead player's worst nightmare. There are really no good counters to Catapults other than Harpies and Dragons and the former require air support anyway since they can't attack air units. * Nearly all Undead are vulnerable to crushing damage. This makes the Orc race rather exceptionally capable of defeating the Undead (particularly with Ogres since Ogres resist the Liche's fire attacks as well as dealing crushing damage itself). * The Undead have a reasonable struggle towards the middle of the game mainly due to the massive Gold requirement of upgrading the Deathkeep. All buildings cost ~ 100 Gold except the gravestone and pretty much all units cost at least a bit of Gold, so it's a serious issue. Depending upon your hero class (Alchemist for example), this may or may not be a problem however. Lore